'WE COULD NOT FIGHT THE INDIANS'

William Dalrymple meets one of the last

remnants of Portugal's Indian empire, still lamenting the natives' uprising

Goa THE HISTORY of Goa is written most succinctly in the portraits of the Por- tuguese viceroys that still line the corri- dors of the abandoned convent of St Francis of Assisi in Old Goa, the enclave's now deserted capital.

The early Portuguese viceroys are giants among men: chain-mailed warlords like Pedro da Alem Castro, a vast bull of a man with great mutton-chop whiskers and knee-length leather boots. The boots ter- minate in a pair of sparkling golden spurs; his plate-metal doublet is bursting to con- tain his beefcake physique. All around Castro are others of his ilk: big men with hanging-judge eyes and thick bird's-nest beards; each is pictured holding a long steel rapier.

Then, some time late in the 18th centu- ry, an air of moral ambiguity sets in. Fer- nando Martins Mascarenhas was the governor of Goa only a few decades after Castro had returned to Portugal, but he could have been from another millennium. Mascarenhas is a powdered dandy in silk stockings; a fluffy lace ruff brushes his chin. He is pictured leaning on a stick, his lips pursed and his tunic half unbuttoned,

as if he is on his way into a brothel. In con- temporary north India, a couple of genera- tions in the withering heat of the Indian plains turned the Great Moguls from hardy Turkic warlords into pale princes in petti- coats. In the same way, by the end of the 18th century, the fanatical Portuguese con- quistadors had somehow been transformed into effeminate fops in bows and laces.

This transition changed the course of Goa's history. In its earliest incarnation, Old Goa was a grim fortress city, the head- quarters of a string of 50 heavily armed forts stretching the length of the Indian lit- toral. From its harbour a fleet of warships enforced the Portuguese monopoly of the spice trade. By 1600, Old Goa, rich on the profits this brought, had grown from noth- ing to a metropolis of 75,000 people: it was larger than contemporary Madrid and vir- tually as populous as the Portuguese capi- tal itself. The mangrove swamps were cleared and in their place rose vast vicere- gal palaces, elegant town houses, austere monasteries and towering baroque cathe- drals.

But with this easy wealth came the soft- ening of the hard edges. The fops and dandies lost interest in war and concentrat- ed instead on their seraglios. Old Goa became more famous for its brothels than for its cathedrals. According to the records of the Goan Royal Hospital, by the first quarter of the 17th century at least 500 Portuguese a year were dying from syphilis and 'the effects of profligacy'. Although the ecclesiastical authorities issued edicts con- demning the sexual 'laxity' of the married women who 'drugged their husbands the better to enjoy their lovers', this did not stop the clerics themselves keeping whole harems of black slave girls for their plea- sure. By 1700, according to a Scottish sea captain, it was a 'place of small Trade and most of its Riches ly in the Hands of Indo- lent Country Gentlemen, who loiter away their days in Ease, Luxury and Pride'.

So it was to remain. The jungle crept back, leaving only the litter of superb baroque churches — none of which would look out of place on the streets of Lisbon, Madrid or Rome — half strangled by the mangrove swamps. Today the best view of the old metropolis can be had from the Chapel of Our Lady of the Mount. To get there you must climb a kilometre-long flight of steps, once a fashionable evening walk for the Goan gentry, now a deserted forest path frequented only by babbler birds, peacocks and monkeys.

Scarlet flamboyants corkscrew out of the cobbles. Bushes block the magnificent gateways to now collapsed convents and lost aristocratic palaces. The architrave of a perfect Renaissance arch is rotted to the texture of old peach-stone. Roots spiral over corniches; tubers grip the armorial shields of long-forgotten grand Goan fami- lies. As you near the chapel, its façade now hidden by a web of vines and creepers, there is no sound but the eerie creek of old timber and the rustle of palms.

The panorama from the chapel's front steps is astonishing. The odd spire, a vault, a cupola, a broken pediment can be seen poking out of the forest canopy. Other than the churches, the entire Renaissance city has disappeared: palaces, shops, the- atres, circuses, taverns, houses — every- thing has been submerged in the jungle.

But of course, despite everything, they hung on,' said Donna Georgina, lean- ing back on her wickerwork divan. 'Despite the loss of the trading empire, they ruled us for another 300 years. They were in Goa for a full two and a half cen- turies before you British conquered a sin- gle inch of Indian soil; and they were still here in 1960, more than a decade after you all went home again.'

'Until Nehru threw them out at the lib- eration of Goa in 1961.'

'Liberation!' said Donna Georgina, her face clouding over as quickly as a Goan beach at the height of the monsoon. 'Did you say liberation? Botheration, more like!'

I had clearly said the wrong thing. Donna Georgina Figueiredo was now sit- ting bolt upright on her divan, rigid with indignation. We were talking in her 18th- century ancestral mansion, not from the outside the largest of the Indo-Portuguese colonial estancias that still dot Goa, but inside certainly one of the most perfectly preserved. To one side of the divan, next to an 18th-century Indo-Portuguese tall- boy, stood a superb tall Satsuma vase. From the walls hung dark ancestral por- traits. Other treasures — Macau porcelain, superb statuary, mannerist devotional images — were dotted carelessly around the wooden galleries.

Donna Georgina clapped, and her bare- foot servant came running down the pas- sage from the kitchen. 'Francis, bring Mr Dalrymple a glass of chilled mango juice. I will have a cup of tea.'

The servant padded off down the bare wooden floorboards. As he went, his mis- tress clasped her hands and raised her eyes to heaven. 'Now where was I? Ah yes. Now under- stand this, young man. When the Indians came to Goa in 1961 it was 100 per cent an invasion. From what were they sup- posed to be liberating us? Not the Por- tuguese because the Portuguese never oppressed us. Let me tell you exactly what it was the Indians were freeing us from. They were kindly liberating us from peace and from security.'

Donna Georgina — who must be in her seventies — had fearsome, beady black eyes and hair arranged in a tight quiff. She wore a flowery Portuguese blouse bought in Lisbon, offset by a severe black skirt. She nodded her head vigorously.

'In the Portuguese days we never had to lock our houses at night. Now we can never be sure we are safe even during the day. And you know who we fear most? The Indian politicians. Absolutely unscrupulous people. They have cut our forests, ransacked our properties. They have made life impossible for everyone — particularly all us landowners. They offer our land to the people in their election promises: never give anything that belongs to them — oh no, not even a pin — but they don't think twice about offering peo- ple what belongs to others. Oh yes. That's very easy for them.'

What Donna Georgina said reflected stories I had heard repeated all over Goa. The sheer length of time that the Por- tuguese had hung on to their little Indian colony — some 450 years of intermingling and intermarriage — had forged uniquely close bonds between the colonisers and colonised. As a result, most Goans still considered their state a place apart: a cul- tured Mediterranean island, quite distinct from the rest of India. As they quickly let you know, they ate bread not chapattis; drank in tavernas not tea shops; many of them were Roman Catholic not Hindu; and their musicians played guitars and sang fados. None of them, they assured you, could stand sitars or ragas.

Moreover, most Goans still talked about 'those Indians' and 'crossing the border to India', while happily describing their last visit to their cousins in the Algarve as if they had been revisiting some much-loved childhood home. Absorption into a wider India, they would admit, had certainly brought prosperity to the previously stag- nant colony, but at a price. Public life had become corrupted, and the distinct identi- ty of Goa was being forcibly and deliber- ately eroded. Portuguese place names were everywhere being Sanskritised; the superb colonial buildings in Panjim were being deliberately pulled down to make way for anonymous Indian concrete: the mansion of the Count of Menem, the last of the great Panjim aristocratic town hous- es, was destroyed only in 1986 to make way for a six-storey block of flats.

For 20 minutes Donna Georgina listed the now familiar litany of complaints.

We could not fight the Indians in 1961,' she concluded. 'They were too many. Goa was a small place and could not defend itself. But it was an act of force. The majority were opposed to the Indian inva- sion. That was why they had to come with their army, their air force and their navy. That day we all cried bitterly. It was the end of the good old days.' She brought out a small handkerchief and dabbed her eyes.

'In fact, since 1961 we've had two inva- sions. First it was the Indians. They plun- dered Goa: cut down our forests and took away our woods. Their politicians created havoc. Then after that it was the turn of the hippies. Disgusting. That's what those people were. All that nudism. And sexual acts: on the beach, on the roads — even in Panjim. Panjim! Of course it was because of drugs that their behaviour was like it was. Disgusting people. Drugs and I don't know what else.'

'But despite all these vicissitudes you seem to have managed to maintain your house,' I pointed out.

'Thanks to hard work,' said Donna Georgina. 'Hard labour I might call it. I'm currently fighting 25 lawsuits in an effort to keep the family property intact. Then there are the monkeys — big monkeys who jump on the roof and try to tear it apart. And as for preparing for the mon- soon rains, it's worse than a wedding. The amount of work — checking the drains, making sure nothing leaks . . . But let me tell you, it is my duty to do so. It is my duty to my ancestors, to myself and to society.'

Donna Georgina took me round the house, showing me the great ballroom where they held the last ball in 1936 and the sunken cloister where she grew all the essential ingredients for her kitchen — chillies and asparagus, coconut and lemon grass, tea rose, papaya and balsam. We ended up in front of the ancient oratoria: a cupboard-like object which opened up like a tabernacle to reveal ranks of devotional images, crucifixes, icons and flickering can- dles. There every day, twice a day, the household met to say a decade of the rosary. On the wall beside it, Donna Georgina had hung a pen and ink drawing of the Holy Family.

'I drew it myself,' she explained, seeing where I was looking. 'The baby is Jesus and the lamb he is feeding symbolises Humani- ty. The old lady is St Anne. All the ancient families of Goa have St Anne as their patron saint.' She paused, leaving the phrase 'the ancient families of Goa' hang- ing in the air.

'It's entirely through St Anne's interces- sion and God's protection that this house is standing and that I am still alive. People always ask me, "Living alone you must have someone to look after you. Who is it?" To which I reply, "God Almighty, Jesus Christ and St Anne." ' 'And, young man, let me tell you this. Between them they are doing a very good job.'

William Dalrymple's book on Delhi, A City of Djinns, is published by HarperCollins on 6 September.